Terence Malick's THE THIN RED LINE is a unique war movie, a genuine art
film, deeply personal, a dreamlike meditation on war, cerebral and
unsentimental. In many ways, it's more like a musical composition than
a movie; the way it is structured overall, as well as the clear
decision to tell the story in movements rather than by conventional
narrative are only two of the factors that set this film apart from all
other war movies.

On many levels, the movie succeeds brilliantly; like APOCALYPSE NOW,
the only other American war movie it remotely resembles, it's more
about what it felt like to be in combat in the Pacific than a realistic
story of how the American forces took Guadalcanal back from the
Japanese. The photography by John Toll is haunting, particularly in the
scenes on the first hill that the soldiers are required to take. Toward
the end, there are scenes set along a jungle river; I've never seen
another movie that more clearly captures the dark green but rich light
of a tropical forest.

The sound by Paul "Salty" Brincat is vividly rendered, crisp and clean,
remarkably realistic, and has been transferred intact to the DVD. Hans
Zimmer's score is as elliptical and mysterious as the movie itself. But
there are elements that get between Malick's beautiful, introspective
movie and the audience. Several of the leading actors, including the
two we see the most of (Jim Caviezel and Ben Chaplin), strongly
resemble one another, particularly with their helmets on; since Malick
avoids conventional dramatic scenes, it's difficult to tell the
characters apart. Furthermore, some more or less emerge from the
general background for a while, then disappear into it again, like John
Cusack's character. Some others we so little of that we never come
close to knowing anything about them as individuals. "All faces are the
same man," murmurs a voice-over, which may indicate Malick deliberately
cast look-alike actors in several roles. Even if deliberate, it still
works against emotional involvement in the movie.

There are frequent voice-overs throughout the movie, but they're odd,
philosophical mediations on war, not commentary on what we're seeing;
"If I go first," a voice says, "I'll wait for you there, on the other
side of the dark waters." Some of this relates to what is clearly one
of the principal themes of the movie, the conflict between warfare and
the natural life of the Solomon Islands, of which Guadalcanal is a
part. The film is rich with images of animals and birds in the jungle
around the soldiers: a crocodile here, brightly-colored parrots there,
a potto climbs a tree, a thick-bodied lizard descends. Most of these
are picked out in individual shots, isolated, never seen in the same
frame as a human being; for the most part, the soldiers are --
understandably -- oblivious to the beauty of their surroundings.

The soldiers land at Guadalcanal without incident, but as they head up
a grassy hill, Japanese troops open fire on them from well-concealed
machine gun nests. Tall orders Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) to take
the hill no matter what, and is furious when Staros, knowing what his
men are facing flatly but nervously refuses to send his men directly up
the hill. The sequences centering on the assault on the entrenched
Japanese emplacements are among the best in the film, and among the
most exciting, tense and believable ever filmed.

There's a pause after the hill is finally taken and the Japanese
routed, followed by a dizzying attack on a Japanese stronghold. Again,
the brilliantly-edited sequence (the editors were Billy Weber, Leslie
Jones and Saar Klein) is almost musical in the way it builds to a
frantic, frenetic crescendo of clumsy action, with American soldiers
pausing in their headlong rush to quickly shoot Japanese. It's a
breath-taking sequence in which several of the characters we've
followed are killed -- but who? Again, Malick doesn't seem to want us
to be able to identify all of them.

Terence Malick has directed only two other movies, BADLANDS (1973) and
DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978), and didn't originally intend to direct this one,
either. This movie is going to confuse some people, who are not
expecting a story about WW2 to be rendered as a tone poem -- but then,
that's what DAYS OF HEAVEN was, too.

Malick's concerns are not those of the usual director of a war movie,
not even, for example, those of Francis Ford Coppola or Stanley
Kubrick, two other outstanding directors who made their own war films.
THE THIN RED LINE is deeply personal, and very carefully made; it is,
one suspects, precisely the film that Malick set out to make.

The film is a bold, imaginative work, highly distinctive, beautifully
photographed, and well-acted. But it's also a curiosity, a genuine
art-house movie on a giant scale. The craftsmanship alone is
magnificent, and there are outstanding sequences, but it's hard to say
after one viewing how well it all coalesces. At times, the voice-overs
sound almost pompous, even pretentious; the difficulty in telling some
of the actors apart works against some scenes (you're sitting there
wondering if YOU are the only person in the theater who has a hard time
telling Bell from Witt, and that's distracting), but at other times,
seems to underscore some of Malick's ideas. Some of the combat scenes
are simply brilliant, a mad swirl of sudden death, long nerve-wracking
pauses, an almost sexual excitement, and a haunting feeling that you
and your buddies are all blending into one fierce, frightened creature.

I think it's going to take some time to sort out THE THIN RED LINE and
what it's about, but most people who see it are likely to watch it only
once. They'll probably come away impressed by some elements of this
ambitious movie, annoyed by its length, and confused about just what it
was they saw. But there's no doubt that it is the work of a
distinctive, imaginative creator, Terence Malick.

The DVD is surprisingly lacking in extras for such a well-respected and
major movie. Malick is reclusive, so it's not surprising that he didn't
record a commentary track, but weren't the producers available? Perhaps
Malick wanted the work to speak for itself; to those who will listen,
it does so eloquently.